test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Hrmph, is this a fact?
Archived Post
Member Posts: 5,050,278 Bounty Hunter
Was just reading this article on the toolset tools and whatnot, but I caught a line of info that kind of sums some things up if true.
http://www.neowin.net/news/e3-2011-eyes-on-with-neverwinters-editing-tools
The line I read is this one...
"As it turns out, the game is still being made by Cryptic who will soon be developing Neverwinter as a third party team for Atari."
So from what I gather from this statement, if true says that Atari as we know sold off Cryptic and whatnot, but obviously NOT the Neverwinter content, but is just hiring Cryptic now as a third party..
Now I hate to bring up this stuff and start controversy.. But immediately as a concerned fanboy should be, you start to wonder.. Okay, the game is somewhat done, we can hire you to finish out the game.... BUT THEN WHAT? What happens next? Is love lost from Cryptic? Will the game be supported? Can this be why they are keeping quiet?
Oh my what did I start.
Well, take your suspicions down. as it doesn't matter, it will all come down to how good the product is at launch. If its good it will be supported, if not it will be dumped... Sounds like Atari had no future for Cryptic hence the cheap sale, but finishing off this title is part of the contract, but we have no clue what that contract entails.. but im sure it will be supported so long as we love it
http://www.neowin.net/news/e3-2011-eyes-on-with-neverwinters-editing-tools
The line I read is this one...
"As it turns out, the game is still being made by Cryptic who will soon be developing Neverwinter as a third party team for Atari."
So from what I gather from this statement, if true says that Atari as we know sold off Cryptic and whatnot, but obviously NOT the Neverwinter content, but is just hiring Cryptic now as a third party..
Now I hate to bring up this stuff and start controversy.. But immediately as a concerned fanboy should be, you start to wonder.. Okay, the game is somewhat done, we can hire you to finish out the game.... BUT THEN WHAT? What happens next? Is love lost from Cryptic? Will the game be supported? Can this be why they are keeping quiet?
Oh my what did I start.
Well, take your suspicions down. as it doesn't matter, it will all come down to how good the product is at launch. If its good it will be supported, if not it will be dumped... Sounds like Atari had no future for Cryptic hence the cheap sale, but finishing off this title is part of the contract, but we have no clue what that contract entails.. but im sure it will be supported so long as we love it
Post edited by Archived Post on
0
Comments
I'll just sum a few things up that are known, nothing more.
I'm not the one to point fingers, just summing up what I know so far.
- Atari as a publisher holds the D&D 3.0 / 3.5 / 4.0 liscence.
- Atari sold it's European department (Atari Europe) to Namco Bandai, who them would distribute Future Atari games (as a whole) on the European continent.
- Hasbro, being a toy company, was not keen on Namco Bandai (also a toy company, and competitor to Hasbro) publishing D&D products, and took legal action. This is the now well known Hasbro-Atari lawsuit over D&D publishing rights.
- Furthermore, it seems Turbine holds a year-long liscence to develop MMO games based on D&D, and because Cryptic came to the scene, another lawsuit happened, this time between Atari and Turbine. Very likely the reason why Neverwinter is called an "OMG" instead of being a standard MMO has something to do with that lawsuit, again.. i'm an outsider, and can only sum up what has actually happened.
- Because of all the lawsuits, or so the NWN2 community thinks, the last patch for NWN2 by Obsidian never happened.
- Cryptic gets bought by Perfect World. What this means for neverwinter is still unknown at this moment. (source: this forum)
In the meantime, the Neverwinter nights community wonders if Neverwinter will have a long life ahead, or that NWN3 by Obsidian, or Osissian might be a better route to follow - at least legally.
But those are things we'll find out in the near future.
All I can say the legal issues are just very complex for the near, and far future.
My only question to Atari would be: What's wrong with NWN3?
My assurance to Cryptic is off course.. neverwinter looks like a great Online D&D game, so no hard feelings.
1) Cryptic is 3rd party and being paid to do a job. They will do that job and do it well since it goes on the dev's resume and from post and comments I have seen most really like D&D and that can only be a good thing.
2) PW owns crypitc but not NWO that is still owned by Atari/Hasbro/WoTC they just get paid for the time thier employees work on the game.
3) Devs can move around so they are not under obligation to stay with Cryptic and could be hired by Atari. That will be of course depend on the succes of NWO and the contracts they have with Cryptic and Atari.
4) Atari could hire a different team to continue updates expansions or fixes for NWO that will cause some slight bumps in peoples differing ideas but its better than dropping it.
5) Never worry for NWO because horrible games like DDO and SWG are still being supported. Heck even EQ1 still has servers. So as long as this game meets most expectations it will be around for a long time.
There are plenty of developers that publish under different companies (yes, even ones wholly-owned by a parent company).
aren't atari still the publisher or something of eve. they dont do anything, just have their name slapped on the box.
Tends to be the case with a number of Atari products. As a matter of fact, all of the Neverwinter Nights were developed by 3rd party dev companies and published by Atari/Infogrames.
Cheers!
How many were recently sold off by the very same owner, with a leash
attached? You don't find it a bit odd, a game is close to launch and they just sold off the developer they own but pay them? With all the blatant hype scams in the past 5 years and the game industry just fluttering about and PC gaming is about doomed... You don't get just a little bit one eyed o_O
Or can you even be optimistic and say, maybe its a clever corporate ploy to hide Cryptic away from trouble as lawsuits fly in?
If this were going to be a traditional MMO I'd be more concerned, but it is not. This is going to require far less day to day maintenance than a traditional MMO, so once they've launched, fixed any major launch day bugs or issues, all they need is a small team maintaining the game and a small team for content (likely mostly c-store stuff). All of which could be done by an Atari team if they so deemed it necessary.
This.
Atari's name is still slapped on DDO, even though Turbine was indie dev that now is owned by Warner Brothers.
Generally, reading up on a subject helps in answering these questions.
Look at games from Unreal tournament 2k3, Dungeons and Dragon Online, etc.
These are games published by Atari despite being either independent or wholly-owned-by-other-company developers.
Pretty much this; having friends that work at both Wizards and Turbine I can tell you that the whole lawsuit thing gets a lot more play on the interwebs than it ever does with the companies.
Right now Wizards needs to make as much money as the possibly can regardless of the source especially now with the sluggish economy; the reason they need to do this is every year they have to prove to Hasbro that they are worth keeping around, and trust me the last thing Wizards wants is to be shopped on the street and purchased by Fantasy Flight games or Green Rhonin, because their operating budget would get cut by seventy five percent.
One day it will all get sorted and will most likely have zero affect on DDO or Neverwinter...if the properties are making money; what will change is what future D&D products get produced.